HC asks PSC to include 280 indigenous candidates

Order clears way for holding written exams

Staff Correspondent

The High Court yesterday directed the Public Service Commission to republish the results of the 34th Bangladesh Civil Service preliminary test after including 280 indigenous candidates, whose names had been dropped off the revised results. The court came up with the verdict after hearing a writ petition filed by 59 indigenous candidates challenging the legality of PSC's decision to exclude their names. Deputy Attorney General Mokhlesur Rahman and the petitioners' counsel Jyotirmoy Barua told The Daily Star that there was now no legal bar for holding the written test of the 34th BCS, including the 280 indigenous candidates, following the HC verdict. On July 8 last year, the PSC first published the results of the preliminary test, in which 12,033, including the 280, passed. Later, amid students' demonstration against the quota system in BCS exams, the PSC on July 14 published a revised list of 46,250 qualified candidates but it excluded the names of the 280 indigenous candidates. Following the petition, the HC on July 31 last year asked the PSC to explain why their exclusion would not be declared illegal. In its reply, the PSC said the exclusion occurred due to penalty marking and re-evaluation of answer sheets. The commission also withheld the written tests. The HC bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Zafar Ahmed gave the verdict.